Seth Rogen on The Independent Spirit Awards and Apocalypse

The 50/50 star talks Oscar snubs, his hosting plans and whether there will ever be a Pineapple Express 2.

Seth Rogen is hosting the Independent Spirit Awards on Saturday, February 25. It will air on IFC later that night. His film 50/50 is nominated for several awards, unlike those snooty Oscars the next night, who snubbed the film completely. Rogen gave a conference call to promote his hosting gig and that actually afforded us a chance to ask several questions. Rogen brought the funny and also shared some news about his upcoming Apocalypse movie.

Congratulations on the Spirit Award nominations for 50/50. What are your thoughts on the Oscar snub?

I don't know, I mean I feel like overall there’s very few moments when the Oscars tastes intersects directly with my tastes so I don’t consider it a snub to be honest. That implies that I assumed it was going to happen. No, I work under the assumption that generally speaking my tastes and the tastes of the Oscar voters are not one and the same.

You would hope a cancer movie, especially with a comedy twist would be their tastes. We were pulling for it.

Thank you, very much. Maybe the sequel will get nominated.

What will you do on stage after 50/50 wins?

I’m gonna go crazy. It’s more what I’m gonna do on stage when we don’t win the awards. I don't know, I’ll be happy if we win. It’s nice to win an award I would assume. I’ve never won one but I imagine it’s great. The good news is since I’m hosting I get to read my acceptance speech whether we win or not.

As a great movie fan, is it nice to have an assignment to watch a stack of screeners as homework?

It really is. It’s pretty awesome. That’s literally the first meeting I had with the Independent Spirit Awards people. They gave me a massive box of DVDs, that this is everything that’s nominated this year. I watch a lot of movies, but I don’t often seek out these little independent movies when they’re in this phase. I wait until they come out, or I wait until tons of people tell me they’re good because I’m too busy seeing Mission Impossible. It was a nice actually to watch a lot of this stuff, because in all honesty, I don’t watch a ton of little, tiny, independent movies.

Well, Mission: Impossible was extraordinary.

It’s great. I voted for it. I’m an Oscar voter. I voted for it.

I thought even more than the building sequence, the car park sequence was something else.

Oh, it was awesome. Come on.

Will you be doing some skits or a lot of improv?

Yeah, we’re planning to film some little things that I hope are funny. I definitely plan to improvise. I find with the stuff I’ve hosted before, none of it’s been televised, but what people seem to enjoy the most is when you’re reactive to what’s happening and when you’re a part of the experience with the audience. That’s what I like the most is if something weird happens then you’ve got to say something about it. I think that’s something I always enjoy when I’m watching someone host.

How is the apocalypse movie going?

It actually seems like it might happen so that’s really exciting for us. Studios don’t greenlight movies anymore. They just kind of slowly let you realize that you’re making it. I think if they still did green light movies we would probably be greenlit right now.

Is it just called The Apocalypse now, not Seth and Jay Vs. The Apocalypse?

I just heard that Fox owns that title so I don't know if we can use that. If we have a shitty title you can blame Fox.

Will there be a Pineapple Express 2?

I don't know. The Apocalypse essentially has the same cast as Pineapple Express so maybe we’ll write it while we’re filming.